BAGHDAD -- Attempts by investigators to piece together what happened around Baghdad's Nisoor Square last month still have not yielded a full and mutually agreed rendering of what caused Blackwater guards to open fire there on Sept 16. An Iraqi government report -- examined by The Associated Press -- is the latest in a wave of inquests from Baghdad to Washington. It comes down hard on Blackwater, demanding that the security company it leave Iraq within six month and blaming it for killing 17 civilians. The previous death toll was at least 11.
The Iraqi report as well as witness accounts and statements from Iraqi officials to the AP put forward new details on the deadly chain of events. Blackwater and U.S. officials have refused to comment on the events. Blackwater maintains that its guards opened fire only after coming under attack. No Iraqi witness has been found to corroborate that claim.
The first convoy
Three black SUVs, each fitted with armored plates and bulletproof windows, made up the heart of the convoy. The front and rear were protected by Blackwater USA gun trucks, known as Mambas, each with two 7.62 mm machine guns.
The vehicles snaked through the checkpoints and blast walls of the Green Zone on the morning of Sept. 16.
Kerry Pelzman, a USAID specialist helping rebuild Iraqi businesses, schools and other infrastructure, rode in one of the SUVs. Her appointment was about two miles from the nearest Green Zone entrance in a neighborhood of opulent homes once occupied by members of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Within a few minutes, Pelzman was at her destination in a secure compound for a planning session on Izdihar -- a U.S.-Iraqi joint venture company working to rebuild Iraq's badly damaged services and funded by USAID on a three-year contract.
At about noon, a car bomb exploded about 200 yards away. Blackwater guards, worried that the bomb was the beginning of a larger attack, hustled Pelzman back into the vehicles. The convoy raced back toward the Green Zone.
Backup called
As Pelzman's convoy was preparing to move toward the Nisoor Square traffic circle -- just on the edge of the Green Zone -- her Blackwater detail radioed for backup, fearing that the explosion might be a diversion for a kidnapping operation against her and others in the compound.
At about 12:15 p.m., four more Mambas arrived at the traffic circle. Their plan was to watch over the traffic choke-point until the convoy passed.
Shooting starts
One of the Blackwater gunners -- in the last Mamba that arrived in the square -- opened fire on an approaching white car. The driver, a 20-year-old medical student, was shot through the forehead and apparently died instantly. The car, with the transmission still in gear, continued moving slowly forward. His mother was in the passenger seat. A traffic policeman said the Blackwater guards started firing at the car again, setting it afire.
The car immediately behind the white car came under fire. A boy riding with his family was killed. The boy's father said he was interviewed by three U.S. military officers Sept. 26 at the Iraqi National Police headquarters. He said he heard other witnesses telling the U.S. officers that they had seen a Blackwater guard trying to stop the shooting. The witnesses said the guard even pulled his gun on the other shooters, who ignored the threat and continued firing.
Route changed
At some point during the chaos, the Blackwater guards in the square must have radioed the Pelzman convoy and warned it not to take its planned route back to the Green Zone. No witness ever saw it in the square. Pelzman declined to comment to the AP.
Once shooting stopped in the square, the Blackwater guards moved the four gun trucks clockwise around the traffic circle -- against the traffic flow -- and headed north toward where the Pelzman convoy may have been rushing back to the Green Zone by a different route.
"Even as they were withdrawing, they were shooting randomly to clear the traffic," said Ahmed Abdul-Timan, 20, who was standing in the middle of the traffic circle throughout the shooting.
In addition, he said two helicopters were hovering overhead and shooting into the melee in the square below. The government report reached a similar conclusion.
The government report said a second Blackwater convoy -- apparently not Pelzman's -- tried to move through the square shortly after the shooting.
Iraqi police used water trucks to block the SUVs from entering the square. It moved into an intense standoff -- weapons pointed by both sides. The face-off was defused when two U.S. military Humvees arrived and persuaded the Blackwater drivers and guards to turn around and return to the Green Zone.
